Just Friends

Two young men from different cultural backgrounds seem perfectly matched for love, but the idiosyncrasies of their parents may keep them apart, in this winning romantic tale set in the Netherlands. When we first meet handsome medical student Yad (Majd Mardo), he has quit his hard-partying life in Amsterdam and moved home to a smaller Dutch city to live with his Middle Eastern mother and father. To their dismay, he settles for a temporary job in domestic care, working for a bubbly elderly woman named Ans (Jenny Arean). Like a mischievous Cupid, Ans slyly introduces Yad to her dashing and sexy grandson Joris (Josha Stradowski), and their connection is immediate. But Joris is dealing with his own set of family problems, including an overbearing mother who is addicted to plastic surgery and who has never fully dealt with the messy end of her marriage to Joris’ late father (screens with "Flashback" D: Queer Youth Media Project, USA, 6 min).

Hard Paint

Set in Brazil's southern city of Porto Alegre, the film focuses on a socially repressed young man who only comes out of his shell during chatroom performances, when he strips and smears neon paints on his lithe body.

Retablo

Stumbling across a heartbreaking secret his father is harboring, 14-year-old Segundo will come to face the raw reality of his deeply conservative surroundings, as well as a more profound connection with his father than he’d ever imagined.